For the purposes of this patent application, “touring-style” means skiing styles, including, but not limited to, alpine touring, ski touring, telemark skiing, backcountry skiing, and Nordic or cross-country skiing, and “touring-style” binding means ski binding equipment for use with ski gear appropriate to any one of these skiing styles.
Touring-style skiing requires touring-style binding equipment, which permits a “free heel” motion. In touring-style skiing the heel-portion of the ski boot is releasably attached to a touring-style binding, which provides an elastic or semi-elastic connection to the ski, a ski plate, or to a binding toe-piece. The binding toe-piece is fixedly attached to the ski or to a ski plate, which is attached to the ski, and releasably attaches to the toe of the ski boot, allowing the heel of the ski boot to move freely within a specific range of motion.
In touring-style skiing, the binding connects the toe of the ski boot to the ski, directly or indirectly. When connected indirectly, the toe of the ski boot may be attached via the binding toe-piece to a ski plate, which is attached to the ski. In motion, the skier's heel describes an arcuate trajectory, between a resting point, atop the ski or on top of a binding heel-piece, and a fully extended position. The skier's heel moves primarily in the plane intersecting the longitudinal axes of the skis and substantially perpendicular to the plane of the top surface of the ski.
Appropriate motion of the skier's heel depends on tolerances of the ski, boot, binding, and the skier's foot and leg and includes a rotating or pivoting action about an axis defined by the intersection of the boot toe and the binding toe-piece. Thus, the skier's boot can pivot at the attachment between the binding toe-piece and the toe of the ski boot to provide the skier's heel with free mobility and thereby enable a striding motion. This allows the skier to stride on flat terrain, to initiate and terminate turns, and to ascend steeply inclined slopes, in combination with climbing skins or crampons, without resorting to side stepping or herringboning.
Conventional cartridge bindings for touring-style skiing offer a single, limited method of adjustment for controlling binding responsiveness , namely, manually changing out binding cartridges of different stiffness ratings. This method requires the skier to acquire and carry multiple cartridges of differing elastic/compressive stiffness categories. When the skier wants to change binding cartridge stiffness to adjust responsiveness and range of motion of the binding mechanism, the skier must manually disconnect the current cartridge and manually connect a new cartridge.
Touring-style skiers demand equipment that is light, reliable, and capable of accommodating changing terrain, weather conditions, and individual preference. It is apparent that the current cartridge binding systems have specific adjustment and control disadvantages. Further development of touring-style ski binding capabilities to provide for easier, dynamic adjustment and control is hereby acknowledged as necessary to advance the current art.
The need for a touring-style ski binding cartridge replacement with the ability to manually and dynamically control binding size, stiffness, and range of motion is accordingly recognized. The present slip differential cassette meets these needs, providing superior binding adaptability and permitting the skier to dynamically adjust and control the response of the binding on the fly to accommodate changing conditions and individual preference.